


HIST 251: The Age of Heroes

by sonicenvy



Category: DCU, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, AU, Angst, College, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Introspection, Like super AU, Lois is an alien, POV First Person, Stream of Consciousness, but like first person from an OC so uhh give it a try???, can u catch my honorary character names?, inspired by the incredibles, loosely related to my other fic star child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 01:56:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicenvy/pseuds/sonicenvy
Summary: Superheroes have been outlawed and forgotten a la The Incredibles. The Kent family deals and does not deal with this. Mara Kent, daughter of Lois and Clark goes to college and signs up for a Seminar that might not have been the best choice for her if I'm being honest.





	HIST 251: The Age of Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> I dont own DCU characters, no matter how much i love Lois Lane, and Clark "Love and respect" Kent, but I do get to keep my OCs (i think). also i decided to make up my own heroes bcs im too lazy to read DCU wikis and it was more fun anyways. beta-readers whomst? i apparently havent heard of them. PLEASE R&R! Might continue this if people are interested.

The age of the Superhero has come and gone. This was a fact I grew up with. It was a great effort on the part of everyone, this mass forgetting. They did not talk about Superheroes in the schools, the news, the library. Superheroes had only been banished a few short years before I was born, and already it was as though they had never existed. My family cannot forget though-- we are the ones being erased. There were still some people who knew us: Ma and Pa Kent, Grandma and Grandpa Lane, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Lucy, cousins Jemma and Angus, the people of Smallville, where everyone knows everyone. We all hold our tongues though.

 

Mom says that after her and Dad gave their final press conference they flew to Smallville, to stay with Ma and Pa Kent for a little while; Smallville is quieter than Metropolis -- there is almost no one calling out for help in the middle of the night in my grandparents’ home town. The temptation is weaker there. The Irigs held a party for them, a going away and coming home party and the whole town attended, everyone silently, collectively agreeing to hold their tongues, everyone silently grieving amidst a block party. I feel that grief sometimes in the eyes of Ma and Pa Kent’s neighbors when we come and visit; they look at me all sad and knowing. 

 

Upstairs in our house, there is a secret room, accessible if one only knows where to look. This room has sat gathering dust, lonely for my entire life. Jordan and I snuck in there once when we were ten or so. The walls were plastered in photos from magazines, newspaper articles and few family photos -- all featuring Superman and Ultra-Woman. The tape holding most of those things to the walls was yellowing, even then. There was a thick layer of dust over the desk and the typewriter on it. The two famous costumes, dad’s (blue, red and yellow) and mom’s (black, purple and white) were there too. There was a whole set of each, filling two of those rolling clothing racks. We didn’t get much of a chance to explore though because mom found us out right quick; other people’s mothers are human, so I suppose they can’t see through the ceiling and into the rooms above them -- our mom can though.

 

I have never been to a single sleepover, in my entire life; I float in my sleep sometimes which is a secret. Even now at nineteen, in college I am careful not to fall asleep where I can be seen. I have a single dorm room, and I lock it before I go to bed each night, and I shut the curtains tightly, like my parents have always taught me to.

 

When I was little,  I think I was resentful of my parents for forbidding us from sleepovers, overnight camps, and sports. In high school I was resentful of my powers, wishing more than anything, on every single birthday that I could be human. Now, I suppose, I am resentful of the humans who hate us so passionately. I have no outlet for the things I can do, I can do nothing to stop the cries for help I hear. I am stuck, chained. I’m certain that Jordan feels the same way about this as I do, though we’ve never directly talked about it; it’s not our way to do that -- someone might overhear. 

 

When other kids start puberty they have to deal with acne and sudden sexual urges, at least according to the movies, and Aunt Lucy when she’s drunk.  When we first started puberty we had to deal with our rapidly strengthening powers, learning a delicate balance of control. We already had our powers even as little babies, but they weren’t as strong as they are now.

 

I know that mom and dad haven’t been able to fully quit themselves of saving people, because they both have all kinds of all black outfits they wear when they go roaming at night. They still have that old stolen police radio in the house from before us, and it still runs all day and all night. Even at the tender age of seven Jordan and I were already familiar with most police codes; when you don’t always need to sleep at night, you need something to do. I suppose the radio also helps mom and dad find places to show up as reporters, but we all know that they were really for finding places to help.

 

I decided to go to college here in rural, upstate New York, for the same reason that we spend half our summers at Ma and Pa Kent’s place in Kansas. The quiet is a nice change from the deafening noise of Metropolis. Despite the noise, I know there’s nowhere I’d rather live; Metropolis is exciting and it’s my home. Once, Metropolis was a city that welcomed the alien visitors Superman and Ultra-Woman with open arms and loving hearts.

 

Even now, now that I’ve accepted that I will never be human, I still dream. I recently had a particularly pleasant dream where I woke up one morning and was completely human. In the dream I only really realized that I was human because I had picked up a pot handle without an oven mitt, since no one was watching and I burned the skin on my hand. I wonder what a burn feels like, and I’m certain that the imagined feeling I had in my dream of it is a pale imitation. Somedays I still find myself wishing fervently that I could feel any kind of pain, that my skin could bruise over and my knee bleed when I trip and fall on the sidewalk on front quad. 

 

Jordan and I FaceTime on Saturdays, even though we could talk anytime, just as well inside our own heads. We haven’t talked that way since we were kids. In the third grade, Dad found out that we were using it to help each other out on tests. Ever since then, even using it has felt a little like cheating, even though I logically know it isn’t. I think Jordan is still in his period of pretending he is human. A part of me misses that connection. I couldn’t explain to you the closeness of it if you have never experienced such a connection; there is nothing else in the world like it. You are completely sure and trusting with the other person and you know them as well as you know yourself. It is, I suppose not for the faint of heart -- I know from my long experience as a keeper of a great deal of secrets that sharing your private self with another is a terrifying concept; there is great bravery in trusting, a kind of ordinary heroic. 

 

Pretending you are human when your are not, cannot be, and never was, is a difficult act. It requires a good deal of conscious acting; it is far more than simply pretending that I cannot fly or see through walls. You must learn how to walk, stand and breath convincingly. People pick up on those types of things unconsciously, and doing them wrong will make you a suspicious person. I remember sitting in our kitchen at the age of four and three quarters with mom, dad and Jordan getting lessons on breathing. Mom makes Jordan and I repeat facts back to her about breathing.  _ A six year old child breathes an average of eighteen to twenty-five times per minute _ . Dad counted breaths with us,  _ one two three _ . You do not have to think about how many times per minute you need to breath, but I do. I can hold my breath for up to one hour, and naturally, I breath far fewer times per minute than you do. Eventually this act becomes so second nature that you can do it with very little thought.

 

The hardest act to learn though is how to properly react to pain. This is a great divide between us and humans I think: we cannot be hurt, thus we cannot feel pain. I have never in my life had so much as a cut. Both mom and dad have, because they did not always have their powers -- they were born on Krypton systems away and it took time for them to adjust to living here on Earth. Jordan, baby Laura and I were born here, on Earth. Dad told us about the time he broke his arm at the age of four, describing it in the best detail he could. I think pain is one of those things that you cannot truly understand unless you too have felt it. I am a passable actress; I have been training for this act my whole life.

 

We are family who love one another very much; most of the time we are quite happy. But there is a great grief that settled over our home long before Jordan and I were ever born. I suspect this grief has three heads. The first is the oldest: the family secret, kept from the time mom and dad each came here to this planet and were taken into our grandparents’ homes. The second head is the isolation that comes with being the remaining members of your people. There were once the new Kryptonians, but they too are dead and gone; we Kryptonians have war in our blood, burned in our bones. This bloodlust killed Krypton and it killed New Krypton next. We live because the only war we fight now is within -- demons of violence and peace embroiled in an unending war. I think we all fear the day that the violent one wins. My peaceful demon speaks in Ma Kent’s voice, and sings her songs to me. The third head of our family grief is the rejection that Mom and Dad faced from the people of Metropolis, this second layer of hiding they have been forced into, this trap they cannot escape. So. You see we are trapped because we are not human.

 

I hate that I wish still, on my worst days to be human. Ma Kent is constantly re-teaching me to love myself, and it’s one of the few threads keeping me sane on my worst days. If God ever created a more kind, caring human woman, I have not met her.

 

This semester, my university is offering a seminar on the Age of Heroes, as it is now called in the few whispers that talk about it. It is a very controversial decision on their part. Many people have called in to ask that it be removed from the course catalog. Professor Marston is insistent on keeping it; as she is a tenured Professor and chair of the Political Science Department, there is not much the administration can do about it. Still, we are featured on the nightime national news, because we are the only college that is offering such a course. The day after the broadcast, I get a phone call from Mom. We talk for maybe an hour or so about what it means, the college offering the course, Marston’s decision to teach it. I tell her that I am going to take the course. Mom and Dad talk about the past just as much as everyone who is actively trying to erase it. Mom doesn’t try to talk me out of the class; she only sighs, and tells me to be very careful.

 

What I secretly wish is that Mom would tell me even one story about this erased past. But she doesn’t. Instead she tells me how much she loves me and how much she worries for me; Mom is always worried -- her fear is a gift that Grandma Lane gave her. I sometimes wish that she could return it, because her fears eat at me. I never say so though; the time is never right. I suffer silently, like we all have to.

 

There are only ten people in the Age of Heroes Seminar. We sit in one of the conference rooms in the political science building. The course is cross-listed as a history and polisci class. I am the only person in the sem that is not in one of those majors. We go around the table and introduce ourselves and I go last, suddenly uncomfortable with the fact that my last name is Kent. Even if the other nine people in the class don’t know about the connection, Dr. Marston will. Still, I go.

 

“I’m Mara Kent,” I say, swallowing, nervous. I find myself having to count my breaths,  _ one two three _ , “I’m from Metropolis, and I’m a Sophomore Studio Art Major.”

The expected question about my name does not come up, but Dr. Marston’s heart skips a beat -- she suspects anyways. The rest of the class simply murmurs some greeting or other back to me. Whatever Dr. Marston’s reason for holding her tongue is it doesn’t matter; I am simply awash in relief that she hasn’t asked me about my name. Jordan tells me that he constantly gets asked about his name; he is studying journalism at Met U, so that situation is entirely his fault, a fact I constantly remind him of. 

 

Dr. (Call me Clara) Marston hands out the syllabi, “You are all adults, so you can read the syllabus on your own time, and email me if you have any questions,” she says.

 

Without further ado she opens up her PowerPoint. The first slide has one of Uncle Jimmy’s first photos of Dad in costume. Clara asks us if any us know who he is. None of my classmates do, and it’s so strange to me because I am from Metropolis and Smallville and the people in my two hometowns know who Mom and Dad are, even if they never talk about it. After a few moments of silence, I raise my hand.

 

“Miss Kent?” Clara says, calling on me.

 

“He’s Superman,” I say, “The hero on your slide.”  _ He’s my father _ , I do not say, but I am thinking it nonetheless.

 

Clara smiles, “I figured you would know,” she says, and for a moment, I am terrified that somehow she  _ knows _ , but then she continues, “being from Metropolis.”

 

If I was human, I would have let out an involuntary breath of relief. But my lips are closed and my nose does not move. I am not human.

 

Clara’s PowerPoint has fifty slides and almost all of them have pictures of heroes on them. I know most of them, because they are my parents’ friends, the kind of friends that your parents have that you call aunt and uncle such-and-such. I haven’t seen many of them in years because we are all trying to move on with our lives. 

 

I know two of them are dead. When you are person with two identities you have two funerals. The funeral for their “hero” identity is a bit overdue, and all of the guests at this hidden funeral are in agreement on this point. No one mentions it, but they are all thinking it, and the thought is another knife in them. I remember Jordan and I being the youngest people at Lightwave’s (Aunt Luna’s) funeral, so we had the dubious honor of holding the capes while we burned them. She was a few years younger than my Mother when she died; the serpent of grief in her had swallowed her up and she’d poisoned herself. 

 

I see Lightwave’s smiling face on slide thirty-eight of Clara’s presentation and I am filled with new grief. I remember the last time I saw Aunt Luna: three days after Jordan and I had turned eleven. She always had a secret smile for us and a pocketful of sweets; we would race each other around the house because she was just as fast as we were, and would eventually end up in a great big pile, giggling, full of joy loud and bright enough to chase away that shared, deep grief. Looking back on it, I think Aunt Luna had already known that her belated visit for our eleventh birthday would be the last time we would ever see one another. She’d given us her highly illicit collection of Superhero action figures. I still have them in a box somewhere; it is only by Mom’s forethought that I do, since I’d tried to be rid of them in the ninth grade.

 

None of my admiring classmates know that Lightwave is dead, but I do, and like most things, it is a secret that will die unspoken in my chest. Everyone else is busy scribbling down the names of all the heroes, but my own notebook is empty, because I don’t need to memorize their names; I already know all of them. I start to wonder if taking this class was a mistake.

 

“I had no idea there were this many superheroes,” a girl, Kelly, I think, says.

 

“These fifty are simply those who were the most well known, and who were members of the League of Heroes,” Clara says, “There were likely many others.”

 

_ There are _ , I think,  _ There is one sitting here, in this class, right now _ . 

 

I keep my mouth shut. I’m an expert at that.

  
  



End file.
